


The Pampered Palace Patient

by just_a_dram



Category: Tangled (2010), Tangled: The Series (Cartoon)
Genre: Common Cold, F/M, Fluff, Mild Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2018-05-27
Packaged: 2019-05-14 13:17:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14770344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/just_a_dram/pseuds/just_a_dram
Summary: Thanks to his new circumstances, Eugene is a terrible patient, but Rapunzel makes for one heck of a nurse.





	The Pampered Palace Patient

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ladybex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladybex/gifts).



> A Eugene x Rapunzel Tangled fic written for @bex-xo. Thank you for your donation to fight Nazis!
> 
> Request: Adorable fluff

“You are a terrible patient, Eugene.”

Rapunzel punctuates her assessment of my sorry state with a pretty little pink pout.

I’d reach up a hand to smudge that pout away with my thumb, but my arms feel like they’re weighted down at my side, which is why I asked if she’d tip the glass of water back for me.

Asked. Whined. Nuance.

She’s a good nurse—attentive and eager to minister to my every need, however pathetic—so she obliged, and as exacting as she is, not a drop was spilled down my chin.

Then she let the frog drink from the glass. I’m always having to share with that changeable amphibian.

It’s my low groan after swallowing that brought about her fair valuation. The groan and maybe the toss of my head against the two pillows the princess piled up for my benefit, which admittedly is a tad dramatic. I’m achy and tired and my throat hurts, but I’ve known worst after all.

“Shhh… the headache, remember?”

“An awful patient. The worst,” she stage whispers.

I’d like to defend myself, but she’s right—like she is about most things. I am most definitely an awful patient. Not even a particularly handsome awful patient, if the reflection over my hulking dresser can be believed. I’d prefer to think the lighting is unfortunate, but I’ve got a frightfully grey pallor at the moment and I usually look every bit the confident rogue when I stand before that looking glass. Today is not my best look. Love better be blind or at least seeing impaired or I’m in trouble.

“I’m horribly, terribly ill. Outcome uncertain.”

She hums, contemplating something, as she brushes a sweaty lock of hair off my brow. Pascal whirs on her shoulder, as if adding his thoughts to their silent review of my situation. “How uncertain? Do you think you’ll be better in time for the Corona Invention Convention?”

Her eyes are wide with hope. Hope for my speedy recovery, as the convention is only two days away. And while she certainly could attend without me—I’m the princess’ boyfriend, an ornamental object at best in the public’s estimation—one of the sweet things about Rapunzel is that she enjoys things _more_ when I’m with her. Which is why I’ve been known to accompany her on the most outrageously boring or embarrassing or ludicrous ventures, just to please her. Not much of a sacrifice, when I’m rewarded with one of her smiles. Or kisses. Not to be too sentimental about it, but just watching her excited fidgeting is enough for me.

The convention lasts three days, and I know Rapunzel can pack a lot of joy into three days. Heck, she can pack a lifetime’s worth of delight into an hour, and she’s been looking forward to judging the inventors’ creations for weeks, so she’s bound to be completely boundless in her enthusiasm. I prefer the Vintner’s Festival myself, but everyone has their thing, I guess.

One of Rapunzel’s things is figuring out what makes things and people tick. She’s pretty adept at it too. She’ll be bouncing in place, trying to suss out how each of the contraptions work, and before the first day’s through, she’ll probably have at least half of them solved sans blueprints. It’s motivated by unfettered curiosity about the world, but with those skills put to other uses? Would have made one hell of a conwoman. Just saying.

“Don’t know, Blondie,” I say, letting my eyes close. Even the light cast by the candle on my bedside table is too bright. I might have whined about that too a few minutes ago.

“The palace doctor said you should be okay by tomorrow.”

“Have we checked his credentials?” I ask, cracking one eye. “Seems like a quack.”

“A quack?”

“Phony. Fake. Charlatan.”

“Oh,” she says with a reassuring pat to my chest. “He was physician to my father’s father before him. Fully vetted.”

“How old is he?” I demand, voice rising in a somewhat unmanly fashion.

The man did squint a lot despite his spectacles. For all I know, he couldn’t see beyond his hooked nose, which doesn’t bode well for his diagnostic abilities.

“Very, very old, I think. Maybe the oldest person I’ve met! How fantastic is that?” she asks, leaning in closer. “He tells a funny story about the morning my father was born and the shape of his head. An absolutely perfect cone… ”

“Rapunzel, I bet he’s senile. I have been treated by a senile septuagenarian. Aren’t you alarmed? I’m starting to be alarmed.”

She cocks her head. “No?”

“You should be. Because clearly this is a serious case of… fugue or brain fever or… ”

“Pox?” she supplies as Pascal goes from green to grey with pink polka dots.

“Oh God. Are there spots?” I ask, managing to push up in the sheets.

I can only see myself from the neck up from this vantage point in bed, but I’m still just grey. Limp hair and dull eyes, yes. Pox, no.

She claps her hands together. “Look! You’re sitting up all on your own. The doctor was right: you’ll be right as rain by tomorrow.”

I narrow my eyes at her, wondering for a beat whether I’ve been conned into demonstrating some evidence of lingering health before collapsing back against the pillows with a sigh. “Let’s hope so. Wouldn’t want my funeral to interfere with the highly anticipated convention.”

“They have worked _very_ hard,” she says, nudging my forearm atop the sheets with her index finger. “The inventors _and_ the staff, planning, setting everything up.”

“Gee, thanks, Blondie.”

“You’re enjoying this. Aren’t you?” she asks, resting her pointy chin on my chest with a quirk of her mouth.

Pascal scurries off her shoulder and down the length of the bed to climb atop the carved foot of my bed. The little guy tends to head for the hills when we get too cozy. If only he knew: I am too sick even for the most restrained canoodling.

“What am I being accused of?”

“Eu-gene, I think you _like_ being a bad patient and making trouble.”

The funny thing is, I wasn’t always a terrible patient. Not funny ha-ha, mind you—being sick in an orphanage or curled up in a dusty old barn isn’t exactly comedy material—but funny interesting. I used to be pretty good at the stiff upper lip thing. Colds, flus, twisted ankles, whatever the world threw at Orphan Eugene or Wayward Flynn, I met it with the bare minimum of fuss. I was Tough. The old me would have scoffed at this cold. I mean, what choice did I have with no one to give two figs about me? Being sick or injured was something to survive, not indulge.

I have been indulging myself since I first felt the tickle in my throat yesterday afternoon. I could blame it on being spoiled. Palace life making me go soft, and perhaps it has. Sometimes I worry my middle is going soft and skip a palace dessert or two until I’m certain my figure is as flawless as ever. But it doesn’t take a great deal of self-reflection to know the real cause of my moaning and groaning and pitiful pleading.

It’s having someone around who actually cares that makes all the difference. Yeah, not just anyone: Rapunzel.

I enjoy things more with her around too. A hell of a lot more. Even being sick is… a _little_ enjoyable with Rapunzel at my side.

“Well, Princess,” I say, shifting my arm enough so I can slip my hand up into her hair and palm the back of her head. “It’s not so much the trouble I enjoy, as it is my stupendously pretty nurse.”

She rolls her eyes to the ceiling, but her cheeks pinken.

“And I’ve managed to get you all to myself.” Not an easy feat in a palace, where privacy is hard to come by. “That’s not too bad for a day’s work.”

“You don’t have to work _so_ hard at being sick, I’m not going anywhere,” she promises with an impossibly cute wrinkle of her nose.

I’d pull her in and kiss her, but then she’d be sick for the convention, so I satisfy myself with running my hand down the length of her spine, slowly. “Thanks, and you don’t have to worry, I’ll survive. And we’ll go to the convention together, so I can watch you award one of those kooky inventors that giant shiny trophy. But until then, I’m going to be the best looking sick boyfriend to ever grace the palace.”

There’s a snuffling sound from the end of the bed that sounds distinctly like a chortle that draws both our attention. Pascal wears a cheeky, froggy grin in spite of his sickly shade of yellow, and then he goes stiff and sticks that long tongue of his out of the side of his mouth. He looks a fright.

“Okay. Is that supposed to be me?”

Rapunzel buries her face in her hands, as if I can’t see her shaking shoulders or hear her hiccuped mirth.

“Yes?” I say, waiting for the pair of them to be done with their now shared giggle fit.

“Oh, Eugene,” she says, peeking between two spread fingers. “You are the best boyfriend, but you _look_ awful.”

Well, love isn’t exactly blind, but Rapunzel gives more than two figs about me anyway. Enough to be patient with her unruly patient for at least another twelve hours.


End file.
